The Tyger
Blake was regarded in his time as very strange, but
many of his ideas make sense to the modern reader. When this poem was written
it was most unusual for writers to show interest in wild animals. People did
not have access to wildlife documentaries on television, as we do today: exotic
animals might be seen in circuses and zoos, but tigers would be a rarity,
perhaps turning up stuffed or as rugs (this was to become very common in the
19th century). Just as today the tiger is a symbol of (endangered) wildlife, so
for Blake, the animal is important as a symbol - but of what? One clue is to be
found in the ison with The Lamb (see the next poem, and the fifth stanza
of this one). Blake's images defy simple exation: we cannot be certain what
he wants us to think the tiger represents, but something of the majesty and
power of God's creation in the natural world seems to be present.
Blake's spelling in the title (The Tyger) at once
suggests the exotic or alien quality of the beast. The memorable opening
couplet (pair of rhyming lines) points to the contrast of the dark 'forest
of the night' (which suggests an unknown and hostile place) and the
intense 'burning' brightness of the tiger's colouring: Blake writes
here with a painter's eye.
The questions that follow are directed at the tiger,
though they are as much questions for the reader. They are of the kind
sometimes called rhetorical (frequently used in public speaking, rhetoric in
Greek) because no answer is given. However, these are questions to which the
answer is far from obvious. For example, the answer to the first question might
be 'God's' ('immortal hand or eye'), but Blake is asking
not so much 'whose?' as 'what kind of?' We are challenged
to imagine someone or something so powerful as to be able to create this
animal. The idea that the tiger is made by someone with hands and eyes suggests
the stories in the Biblical book of Genesis, where God walks in the Garden of
Eden and shuts Noah in his ark. It is again the painter and engraver who observes the complexity of the tiger's markings in their
'fearful symmetry'. The sensitive human artist is awe-struck by the
divine artistry.
Blake asks where the fire in the tiger's eyes
originates. It is as if some utterly daring person has seized this fire and
given it to the tiger (as, in Greek myth, Prometheus stole fire from the gods
and gave it to men). The poet is amazed at the
complexity of the tiger's inner workings ('the sinews of thy heart'),
at the greater power that set the heart beating, and wonders how the animal's
brain was forged: 'What the hammerin what furnacewhat the
anvil?'
The penultimate (last but one) stanza takes us back
to Genesis and the creation story there: on each of the six days (He rested on
the seventh) God looked at His work and 'saw that it was good'. God
is represented as being pleased with His creation, but Blake wonders whether
this can be true of the tiger. If so, it is not easy to see how the same
creator should have made The Lamb. The poem appropriately ends, apparently with
the same question with which it started, but the change of verb from
'could' to 'dare' makes it even more forceful.
This poem is not so much about the tiger as it
really is, or as a zoologist might present it to us; it is the Tyger, as it appears
to the eye of the beholder. Blake imagines the tiger as the embodiment of God's
power in creation: the animal is terrifying in its beauty, strength, complexity
and vitality.
The Lamb
In The Tyger Blake points to the contrast between
these two animals: the tiger is fierce, active, predatory, while The Lamb is
meek, vulnerable and harmless. In the first stanza Blake, as in The Tyger, asks
questions, and these are again directed to the animal, although the reader has
less difficulty guessing the answer, which the poet in any case gives in the
second stanza. The picture of The Lamb's feeding 'by the stream and o'er
the mead' (=meadow) is a beautiful one, which suggests God's kindness in
creation, and has an echo of similar descriptions in the Old Testament book of
Psalms (especially Psalm 23, 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want') and the parables of Jesus.
In the second stanza, Blake reminds The Lamb, and
us, that the God who made The Lamb, also is like The Lamb. As well as becoming
a child (like the speaker of the poem) Jesus became known as The Lamb of God:
Jesus was crucified during the Feast of the Passover (celebrating the Jews'
escape from Egypt) when
lambs were slaughtered in the temple at Jerusalem.
This was believed to take away the sins of the people who took part in the
feast. So when Jesus was killed, for the sins of all people, according to the
Christian faith, He came to be called The Lamb of God. Although this is an
image mainly of meekness and self-sacrifice, in the last book of the Bible
(Revelation) Jesus appears as a Lamb with divine powers, who defeats the
Anti-Christ and saves mankind. Blake's poem seems to be mainly about God's love
shown in his care for The Lamb and the child and about the apparent paradox, that God became both child and Lamb in coming, as
Jesus, into the world. The Tyger and The Lamb go well together, because in
them, Blake examines different, almost opposite or contradictory, ideas about
the natural world, its creatures and their Creator. How do you see the two
animals depicted? What images do you find interesting, and what do they tell
you?
The 1794 collection, remember, was called Songs of
Innocence and Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul:
explain how these poems show 'contrary states'.
How, in these two poems, does Blake explore
different ideas about God and nature? Which do you find more appealing (if
either) and why?
Both poems use simple rhymes and regular metre. Does
this mean the ideas in the poems are simple, too? Give reasons for your answer.
A useful exercise here (as with all the poems)
is to present the poems either as Blake did (this will require some research),
or as you imagine he might have done. That is to say, you should use a
handwriting style which seems appropriate, and illustrate/decorate the
background or surrounding area. You could use this copy for familiarising
yourself with the poems. You might like to use Blake's original spelling and
punctuation (your teacher should be able to give you a copy of this).
